meet with him

meet with him
I walked into the room, the beeping sound greeted me before i could even see his face.
“Dari-”
“It’s best not to wake him my Lady” one of them said, cutting me off.
I looked at them, my gaze explaining everything ‘why shouldn’t i?’
“he survived a massive blow to the chest. He needs time to heal” i found myself nodding before i could even think to question whatever it was that they wanted to say.
It felt different as soon as i entered into the room. tlike viberations under my feet also, the ward smelled like iron and burned herbs.
“something is not right in this room” i said, stopping my movement for a while.
“my lady?” one called, looking at me with slightly wide eyes
“the vibrations… it feels like how it was in the void” i took another stop closer.
“ahh,… it must have been the magic. He did not want scars so we used some magic to seal it up”
I nodded, standing at the foot of his bed for a long time without moving, afraid that if I took another step, something inside me would finally give way. Darius lay utterly still, his body surrounded by tubes, bandages, and softly pulsing wards. His chest rose and fell—but barely—and every shallow breath felt like it was being borrowed from time itself.
He looked smaller like this.
Not weak. Never that. Just… quiet. Stripped of command, of steel, of that impossible presence that made entire rooms bend around him. His lashes rested dark against his skin, his face drawn and pale beneath the harsh ward lights. There was dried blood at his hairline that no one had yet cleaned away.
I moved closer.
My fingers hovered just above his hand, not quite touching. I didn’t trust myself to. If I felt his skin, if I confirmed he was real and here and broken because of choices he made to arrive at this stage, I wasn’t sure I’d stay standing.
“You idiot,” I whispered, my voice shaking despite my effort. “You didn’t even tell me.”
The heart in my chest answered with a heavy, unfamiliar thud.
The thought made my throat tighten painfully. Every beat felt wrong.too strong, too loud.
I don’t know how long I stayed there. Time blurred into something shapeless, measured only by the steady hum of magic and the fragile rise and fall of his chest. I memorized him like this, afraid it might be the last version of him I would ever see.
A quiet movement behind me drew my attention.
The doctors stood near the doorway, speaking in low voices. When one of them noticed I was looking, they froze. For just a moment, barely giving me time to register the emotions that crossed their faces before their faces shifted.
Guilt.
Sharp and unmistakable.
It vanished almost immediately, replaced by practiced calm, but it was too late. I had seen it. My stomach twisted, unease coiling tight and heavy.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice thin. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s nothing,” one of them said quickly, too quickly. “You’ve been through enough.”
Another stepped forward. “It’s time for you to rest, Lady Mika.”
I looked back at Darius. At the stillness of him. At the way his hand lay open on the sheets, empty.
Every instinct in me screamed to stay. To refuse. To plant myself beside him and dare anyone to move me.
But exhaustion crashed over me all at once, sudden and bone-deep. My body felt heavier than it had moments ago, like gravity had quietly doubled while I wasn’t looking.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I said, even though it tasted like betrayal.
I turned toward the door, and that was when it happened.
A sharp, crushing tightness seized my chest without warning. I gasped, the breath coming out broken as pain bloomed and spread, wrapping around my ribs like a vice. The world tilted violently, the ward lights blurring into harsh streaks.
I clutched at my chest, panic flaring hot and fast. “My Lady…” someone called, rushing to me
“I—I can’t—” I tried to say, but the words wouldn’t form. Each breath felt too shallow, too slow, like my lungs had forgotten what they were meant to do.
The doctors’ voices rose suddenly, urgent and distant all at once.
My knees buckled.
At first, it was just the tightness, sharp and unfamiliar. like an invisible hand closing slowly around my chest. I tried to breathe through it, telling myself it was shock, exhaustion, fear. I had felt all three before when i had woken up but it was nothing as much as this.
“try getting up” someone said, supporting me by the side to which i nodded.
But my body didn’t listen.
“breathe in” another said, looking at me with Panic in his eyes
Each breath became work. Not painful exactly, but wrong too shallow, too thin, as if the air itself had grown heavier and my lungs weren’t strong enough to pull it in. My heart began to pound wildly, no longer steady, no longer certain. It stuttered in my chest, each beat echoing too loudly in my ears.
“pleae, try to stay awake.” someone said, lifting me up from the floor, but my eyes were already closing up by then.
I nodded again, trying with everything inside of me to keep myself from passing out, but it did not seem to be working
“we are loosing her!!!!!”
“Its failing!!!” another one yelled.
It felt as though i was watching everything happen from another person’s body
‘what was failing? Who were they loosing?’ the thoughts ran through my head as the world started to get blurry
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me was Darius. He was still unmoving, still silent and the cruel feeling that whatever was happening to me might… most likely be tighted to him.
“i need him to wake up” i said, looking at one of the doctors before everything went black.